Death Guilds
by twosmall
Summary: It wasn't Kirito who found the first floor boss room. It was Diavel's clearing party. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Not the owner of this universe. Hope you enjoy.

**Floor 1, Day 1**

Toon's life was on the line and he didn't even know it. He thought he was just playing a video game.

So when a breeze swept through the the rolling hills of digital grass that surrounded him and ruffled shoulder-length blonde textures that served as his avatar's hair, he felt exhilarated. It wasn't reality, but it felt so similar to it that it was easy to forget that the Nerve Gear headset was covering his face in the real world. Especially since he couldn't feel its weight pressing down on him. The device on his head ensured that. It didn't use a monitor or even speakers to interact with him; it transmitted and received data by replacing his senses and intercepting his every impulse.

Sword Art Online, the first ever virtual MMORPG, was so cool. It really delivered on the promise of the VR tech in ways that previous games that allowed for a full-dive hadn't. Everything about the game was just so immersive.

The sound system was no exception. Hearing oinks, Toon turned and threw one of his throwing picks at the source of the noise. It was an awkward throw, he didn't really know how to use the picks. Still, his female character smiled as the pick slammed into the black haired boar he had been hunting.

The boar wasn't pleased. A sound file with fiercer oinking was played as the boar charged.

Stepping to the side at the last moment, he easily dodged the boar's sharp tusks. The virtual creature was still in its recovery animation as he activated a dagger form. His blade glowed pink and then darted down leaving a glowing trail of light behind as it tore through the boar's side.

The game didn't have too much gore so in place of a bloody wound his dagger had left a gash of bright-red light which slowly began to fade.

The damage from his attack brought the boar's health all the way past green, yellow, and red until it was completely blacked out causing the boar to shatter into a cloud of bluish white polygons. Toon ignored the status text announcing his experience gain, more interested in double checking the quest log in the far right corner of his field of view which was now listing the boar slaying quest as complete.

"Nice job! You're a natural." Toon heard someone shout. Turning, he spotted Diavel's blue-haired avatar grinning at him from the top of the nearest hill.

"Not really. I forgot to use the throwing skill to power up my pick. Wait you're alone, where are Matt and Kaz?" Toon called back. His voice bothered him. It came out higher-pitched than it would in the real world, as if he were a girl. He would need to find the option to disable that in the game's sound settings. He wasn't trying to trick anyone into thinking of him as a woman.

"They already headed off to start the next quest," Diavel said. "Kaz is leading the way, since he was in the beta too. I stayed back to help you tag mobs before anyone else could get to them, but it looks like you're already done."

"I was in range when you were doing some of yours," Toon confessed. Diavel had wanted all of them to tackle the first quest on their own, to get them used to the combat system, but it had been made a little tricky due to the thousands of players who were starting to crowd the grasslands of West Field competing for the elusive boar spawns that were needed to complete the introductory quest. The first day of new MMOs were always like that and their group had been slow to start out since only Diavel and Kaz had been a part of the beta and had needed to coach everyone else in how to setup and use their skills.

"Good, lets get going then, Kaz and Matt are probably waiting for us." Diavel started running across the fields as soon as he finished speaking.

Toon, knowing that he was expected to follow, gave chase. They hadn't run long before they crested a hill and the Town of Beginnings loaded into view. It was an enormous town, big enough to get lost in a hundred times over. That was how the game was though. Just the scale of everything was mind blowing.

They didn't end up finding their friends at the quest turn in. Instead they found them waiting for them by the next quest giver, a silver haired woman running a shop in one of the town's many twisting alleys. Kaz had chosen to make his character look extremely buff and was sporting stubble. His muscular character broke down in laughter as soon as he saw Toon appear.

"You and Matt are both going to want to re-roll, mark my words," Kaz said, forcing words out between chuckles.

Toon didn't think it was very funny. He and Matt had been extremely practical. The comically thin frames their avatars had would give them an advantage in PvP later on by making them harder to hit, even if it made them look ridiculous now. It was the entire reason he had chosen to roll a female. They had the thinnest available body type.

Matt hadn't taken the idea to such an extreme as to switch genders. Still, they both had the width of young children despite otherwise adult bodies. They might have been smaller too, but neither had wanted to sacrifice arm reach which went hand-in-hand with height.

"Stop laughing," Toon said. "I heard enough of that back when we logged on. You know I don't care about looks."

The quest giver interrupted their banter. "Welcome to my store, but I won't be able to sell you anything," the crone said. Her voice actor had given her speech a rasping quality.

The attention to detail was impressive. A lot of games didn't go through the trouble of voice overs for every quest. Toon was still annoyed though. The game wouldn't let them skip the dialogue even though Diavel already knew what they had to do.

"Why is that?" Diavel asked, prompting the crone to give them the task she was waiting to be asked about. There wasn't a list of options. The game had an AI that processed speech.

"All of the stuff in the floor room is for show. My actual goods are in the basement below, but some giant rats have taken up residence and I can't reach them! If you can help me get rid of the rats, I'll give you some of the equipment down there free of charge. Do you think you can help?" The old crone leaned forward as she spoke, as if eager for an answer.

"Yes," Diavel said bluntly. He obviously didn't want to waste time with the NPC either. They didn't have time for that sort of nonsense if they were going to be the first group to get to the rare treasure chests and monsters further into the game.

With the quest accepted, the yellow exclamation mark that had been hanging above the woman's head transformed into a question mark and a progress indicator appeared in the right corner of Toon's field of view. He had to look to the right to see all the words floating in the air. Zero out of ten rats killed. Another slaying quest, awesome. It was a well known fact that slaying quests were the best quests in any MMO.

The group headed through the leatherworker's shop into a back room which had a staircase leading into the basement. A girl wearing a brown cloak with a cowl that covered her face ran up the stairs as they ran down, forcing them to push up against the wall.

The bottom of the leatherworker's shop wasn't abnormally large. It could only fit a few people. That was a problem. It should have been a mini-zone within the starting city so that many groups could use it at the same time. The fact that it wasn't meant only a few players could do the quest at a time. Toon felt that was poor game design. Luckily, nobody else was there besides them, if you didn't count the giant virtual rats.

Immediately after entering the room the group split up, each person using a throwing pick to tag their own rat at a distance. Toon remembered to use a form this time so his pick streaked through the air in a slash of pink light. As the rat was charging he responded by using a dagger skill and moments later it was over. Seconds after that they had finished off all the rats.

_Working in a group has its advantages though I don't really need the help._

Sword Art Online and some of the fighting games he had full-dived in were similar. Every attack had a starting position and once in the starting position it could be activated. At that point the game would help the player follow through the motions of the attack. Since there were a limited number of attack patterns that could be used that meant there was a recovery period by virtue of the fact that players needed to assume the proper blade position before they could attack.

The similarities made him feel confident in his ability. He was good at those fighting games. Right now though he had more important concerns. Like keeping up with his group which was charging up the stairs back to the quest giver. "Oh, you're back already?" The crone asked.

"We finished the quest," Diavel explained.

As soon as the words were out of Diavel's mouth the quest disappeared from the quest log and status text announced gains of experience and a leather tunic. Toon pulled up his menu by pinching his fingers together and pulling down as if he was undoing a zipper. Then he navigated through the menus until he reached his character's inventory. Finally, he tapped the leather tunic and hit equip. The tunic materialized around him. The rest of his group was doing the same thing. Nobody needed an explanation on how to equip items, they had gone over it back when they first logged on. With leather tunics worn by all, the group left.

On and on they ran, from quest to quest. There were dozens of other players doing the same quests they were on at first. Yet as the day wore on they left more and more players behind them, including the girl who had finished the rat quest ahead of them.

It was little things that gave them their lead. Diavel already knowing where each quest was and how to do it. Tagging mobs before others could with the use of projectiles. Pulling more than one mob at a time so they didn't have to waste time collecting each creature one by one. Always running instead of moving at a more leisurely pace. Yet the little things added up into a big lead.

Toon looked at a hill they had cleared an hour ago and spotted hundreds of players fighting for the wolves which spawned there. If they had been slower, they'd be stuck up there too.

"Glad we missed that bottleneck," Diavel said. "Most of the quests in this game are like that. What we just did in a few hours is going to take some people days to get through."

It wasn't long before the group found themselves finishing up the last of of the starting quest chain. There was no item reward, however, turning in the last quest did do something pretty amazing. It caused each of them to level up. Toon was relieved that they had finally leveled. It was looking like the time it took to level in Sword Art Online was much longer than in other games and he really hated grinding. If it had taken any longer then he probably would have quit.

The announcement of the leveling itself was a muted affair. There wasn't any loud trumpet or dinging noise to herald the new level. Instead status text appeared centered in the middle of Toon's vision. The top half of the message read, "Congratulations. You have reached level two." Then beneath that, there was a bullet point list that said Toon had gained three stat points, and his health had been reset to full.

"Grats everyone," Diavel said as he and Kaz expertly went through their menus and assigned their stat points to the attributes they wanted. Toon and Matt on the other hand had no idea how to get to that part of the menu.

"Little help please?" Matt asked.

"Oh, right," Diavel said. "Open your menu, then go to character, then attributes. SAO is a little different then other games. You only have two attributes you can choose from: Strength and Dexterity."

"Hmm. Which one is better?" Matt asked as he brought his hand in the swiping motion that allowed him to pull up his own menu. Toon was quick to copy him.

"I wouldn't say that one is actually better than the other. They are just different. Strength increases your health, increases your damage, and lets you carry more. Dexterity lets you move faster, jump higher, run longer, and also increases your damage. So I'm putting two in strength and one in dexterity every time I level, since the best weapons have higher strength requirements, but there aren't any requirement for dexterity."

Toon thought a bit about what that meant for stat allocation. Basically, no matter what choice he made he would be fine in the damage department, unless he completely ignored Strength and wasn't able to use the better weapons down the line. Meanwhile, Strength was good for tanking damage while Dexterity was good for avoiding damage.

"Well, I played a tank in every other MMO I've played," Matt said. "I'm putting everything in strength."

"Everything?" Kaz asked. "I'm going to be splitting them evenly. The way I see it is that I don't know which is actually better so I should keep them both about even until we figure out which stats are actually the best."

"Yeah," Matt said. "I'm going all in. Hey, at least this way I'll never get one shot."

Toon knew what sort of fighter he wanted to be. The others could be the front line tanks. He didn't even want to soak damage, it wasn't his style. "I'm going to put two in dexterity and one in strength," he said, as he entered his choices. "But now that we're done with the introductory quests, where do we go next? The quest giver didn't tell us where the next questing hub was."

Before Diavel could answer, a bell started tolling. Toon looked at the time that was displayed in the top-left corner near his name and health bar, confirming that it wasn't yet 6:00 PM. Apparently the bell didn't ring on the hour. It didn't really matter though.

"We're heading over to the next village. We're done here," Diavel answered.

Then the bell stopped tolling and...

Toon found himself back at the center of the Town of Beginnings, the same plaza he had been spawned into upon logging in only a few hours ago. Other players were appearing around the circular plaza too, their avatar's form flashing into existence after a special effect in which their position was surrounded by a vortex of blue light.

The sheer number of people made it clear that the other players weren't just logging in. Though if there had been any doubt about whether or not everyone in the game had been teleported to the plaza it was cleared up when Toon's group mates took shape around him.

Curious as to the consequences of so many players in such close proximity, Toon checked his ping. The small number in the bottom of his HUD stunned him. It was lower than when he had first logged on. Impossible. "What the hell? My pings fourteen. What's yours?"

"Huh?" Matt asked. "Wait, mines fourteen too."

"Must be some sort of glitch I guess," Toon said, unable to believe the netcode for the game was really as good as it seemed to be. "Anyway, what's going on. Is this some sort of world event? What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know," Diavel said, as a harsh red light fell across the plaza. Toon looked up trying to find the cause.

Ignoring the fast-moving fluffy clouds which scrolled across the simulated skyline, Toon found his eyes drawn to a huge status message which floated well below the picturesque background. System Announcement. Warning. The words hung in the air ominously, bulky black letters resting on a field of red. Then it spread, duplicated and fanned out until a dome had been created above the plaza made out of the warning. A dome which began dripping blood, despite Toon being quite sure his gore setting had been disabled.

The great blobs of pixelated blood flowed together forming a huge ball of swirling red and black which quickly took shape into a giant with a red cape that covered its entire body, though underneath the hood there was no face.

Toon loved it. Text based GM entrances had nothing on Sword Art Online's approach. They didn't even come close. Would he get that sort of response if he sent in a ticket? If that was the case, he would be sending in a ticket a day.

"Players, I welcome you all to my world. My name is Kayba Akihiko," the giant robed figure called out. Toon recognized the name. It was the man who had pioneered the Nerve Gear technology and the lead developer of SAO. "I am the only person who can control this world," Kayaba continued. "I think that most of you have discovered that the Log Out button has disappeared from the main menu. This is not a bug; it is all part of the Sword Art Online experience. Until you get to the top of this castle, you cannot log out of your own free will."

Couldn't log out? That wasn't a good starting event.

"Also, disruption or dismantling of the Nerve Gear from the outside is strictly forbidden. If these things are attempted, the microwaves in your Nerve Gear will emit a strong electromagnetic pulse, destroying your brain."

Toon's avatar grinned. He had always had gallows humor. The guy was joking right? A quick pinch produced no pain, though he did feel the touch. Still, he somehow knew he wasn't sleeping.

"To be a little more specific, the battery running down, remaining disconnected for a prolonged period, and any attempt to unlock, dismantle, or destroy the Nerve Gear will start the brain destruction sequence."

Toon felt the grin on his avatar's face widen and its virtual hands clench tightly. He hadn't plugged in the Nerve Gear before he had started playing. Didn't that mean... No, it couldn't be.

"These conditions have been made known to the government and the public through mass-media in the outside world. On that note, there have been several cases where the relatives or friends have ignored the warnings and tried to forcefully remove the Nerve Gear. The result... regretfully 213 players have already exited this game and the real world, forever."

A long, thin scream rang out, but Toon ignored it. He was going to die. He didn't even have the chance to protect himself. Toon was unplugged. Kayaba was a fucking idiot and Toon was unplugged.

"Players, there is no need to worry about the bodies you left on the other side. Even now, all TV, radio, and Internet media are repeatedly reporting this situation; including the fact that there have been numerous deaths. The danger of having your Nerve Gear taken off has already all but disappeared. Even now all of you are being transported to hospitals or similar institutes where you will be given the best treatment. So you can relax and concentrate on beating the game."

_My ping._

His family, his sisters, they already knew what was going on. They had already been moved! He was safe. They had plugged him in before he had even been teleported here. Toon took a deep breath, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"But I ask of you all to understand that Sword Art Online is no longer a simple game, it is a second reality. From now on, their won't be any respawning if you die. The moment your HP reaches zero, both you and your avatar will be gone forever. Your brain will be destroyed by the Nerve Gear."

Matt looked around bemused, seeming to have recovered from the shock that had descended upon the crowd. "This is a joke right?"

Nobody answered, though many in the crowd were echoing Matt's sentiment.

"Players, there is only one way to be freed from this game. As I have said before, you must get to the top of Aincrad, the one hundredth floor, and defeat the final boss that resides there. All players still alive at that time will be immediately logged out of the game. I give you all my word."

Everyone was silent. The sort of silence that came before a breaking storm. Kayaba didn't wait for the screams of denial to arrive. He spoke into the silence. "Also I have given each of you a gift."

His avatar moved through the motions of opening up his inventory and pulling out an item named Hand Mirror. When Toon looked into he saw the female face he had chosen when he had first logged in, her features drawn in the style of the anime's he had watched in his youth. Toon frowned, wondering why Kayaba would have given him a mirror, but then he was surrounded by the same blue vortex that had come upon each player when they first spawned in and suddenly he was himself. The mirror showed how he actually looked! Six foot tall. Blonde haired. Male. Thin. Every feature was exactly like it was in real life, though the anime graphics fell short of actual realism due to their bright quality and omission of detail.

Toon glanced around at the avatars of his friends, who had also been swallowed in the same blue swirls. Diavel's avatar had his true to life brown hair descending past his shoulders and he had the same lithe body from when they had waited in line at the midnight release the day before. Meanwhile, Kaz's character had grown thicker, shorter and lost most of its muscles and Matt's had lost his overly thin frame and his brown hair was an inch shorter.

"You will all probably be wondering why. Why am I doing something like this? Is this a terrorist attack? Does he want to hold us for ransom? Well, I'm doing none of those things. For me, this virtual world made real is an end unto itself. To create and watch over this world, that was my only goal. And now, it has been realized. Players - I wish you luck."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I don't own this universe. Hope you enjoy_

**Floor 1, Day 1**

After Kayaba Akihiko finished his sickening announcement the players in the plaza got angry. It would have been scary in the real world. However, seeing as it wasn't reality all any of the gamers could do was rage. The few who tried acting out on their anger found out that players couldn't harm each other in a safe zone and that the town itself was made up of immortal objects.

It still was a very disruptive environment though. There was jostling and some people were demanding help from more experienced players. It wasn't the sort of place that a serious conversation could be held. So Toon and his group left.

It took only a little while to find a place to talk, but in those few moments Toon realized that his reaction to the game had changed. When he had first traveled through the Town of Beginnings he had been amazed by how large it was. The residential section was huge, the inns were giant things that reminded him more of modern motels then a place to stockpile on consumables, and the number of shops, many of which were unoccupied, was staggering. Now that very same scale and attention to detail seemed terrible. Kayaba Akihiko intended for people to live in this game and it showed in its construction.

Once the buzz of the players still at the town center had died away, the group stopped for there much needed talk.

"What do we do now?" Toon asked.

"I think we should just keep questing," Diavel said.

Everyone proceeded to look at Diavel like he was crazy. Then Kaz put into words what everyone was thinking. "Dude, why the fuck should we leave the starting city? Didn't you hear the guy? If we die in the game we die in real life."

"I'm not stupid," Diavel said. "I've been thinking about this while we were walking. There are a few different options. One option is that we are let out by people on the outside quickly. If that happens it won't matter what we do. It's not like we will be in any danger outside of raid mobs with how skilled we are. Then there is the option where we are stuck here. If that's the case the only way out is beating the game. So we need to work towards that, unless you really want to be stuck in here."

"We could just let others beat the game," Toon pointed out.

"Yeah, but think about it. We're good. We're probably some of the most talented people playing the game." Diavel wasn't exactly modest. "We should step up and be noble you know? Help save people lives and shit like that."

Kaz scoffed at that. Diavel wasn't really a noble sort of person unless it got him something he wanted. "I agree with you that we will probably be safe until we get farther into the game. The mechanics required when we first start out are too simple. You don't even need to do any switching to take on mobs. I don't know about beating the game though. I just think we should make a point of being ahead of the other players. This place is practically rioting and I know it's a safe zone, but I don't exactly feel safe here. Plus we need to leave if we want to make col so we can buy food and have a roof over our heads at night."

Suddenly Toon was struck by the realization that he was a newbie. To him it seemed like the safest bet was staying put, but the only thing keeping him afloat was the fact that his friends knew what they were doing. Or at least they seemed to. Toon and Matt looked at each other then back at their beta tester friends. If the two of them thought it was best to keep questing, they didn't have the experience to argue against it. "Okay then, " Toon said, not sure if he was making the right decision. "Lead on Diavel."

"Alright then," Diavel said. "The next questing hub is in a small village called Horunka. Its to the northwest. Follow me." With that the group was off. They still had daylight left and they meant to use it.

The run to Horunka took nearly thirty minutes, despite the fact that it was only two miles from the town of Beginnings. However, it wasn't exactly monotonous, since every once and a while wolves would spawn on the path. The group didn't even pause to destroy the wolves. One hit was all it took to slay them. What they did pause for was the status text that announced that they were no longer in a safe area which had appeared long after they had left the Town of Beginnings behind.

The run continued to drill home to Toon just how big the first floor of Aincrad was. Fifteen minutes of running in most MMOs would take you through several zones. Thirty minutes might get you across a continent. Hell, in some MMOs you could travel between galaxies with a click. Here it was a little different.

Not only did Toon have to run for thirty minutes, but he had the pleasure of being exhausted at the end of it. The realism sucked. Toon hoped that things would get easier as his characters stats improved. If they didn't he would make a point of not running anywhere. It would be a hard habit to kill though. Nobody walked in an MMO unless they were on an escort quest, in which case they both walked and cursed the developers simultaneously.

The village itself turned out to only have ten or so buildings, most of which were the sort of thing that would seem mandatory for any settlement in an MMORPG: an inn, a leatherworker's shop which was this levels version of an armory, and a weapon shop. However, there was also a smattering of houses, one of which was two stories tall.

Diavel led the group straight to the weapon shop where they were greeted by an NPC who was clearly the owner of the shop. A yellow exclamation mark hung in the air over the greying man's head indicating that he was a quest giver. "Hello there, I'm afraid I was just about to close up. Not too long before you got here the store was robbed by kobolds that have been terrorizing the village. They stole almost all of my merchandise."

"Can we help?" Diavel asked, fishing for the words that would activate the quest.

"That would be great, but I couldn't let you do that without a reward," the weapon smith said. "If you get me back my stock I'll be sure to give each of you one of the best weapons I've crafted. If you want to find the kobolds that stole from me you will need to head further northwest of the town. That is where I saw them running off too."

As the quest giver finished his spiel a new quest objective appeared in the right-side of Toon's field of view. In bold letters the quest was titled, "Kobold Thief Hunting" and beneath that in italicized text were the words, "Return the weapon smith's stolen stock."

With the weapon quest acquired. Diavel then led them next door to the leatherworker's shop. The digital room smelled of leather and there was tons of the material arranged throughout the room. Some of it was displayed on mannequins, but most of it was stacked neatly in folded piles on tables that lined the store's walls. Toon ignored this and walked straight up to the shop keep. "I'd like to see your stock," Toon said.

"Huh?" The shopkeeper's AI obviously didn't understand the question.

"I'd like to see your wares," Toon tried again.

"What?" The shopkeeper was still confused.

"Toon, what the hell are you doing?" Diavel asked, coming up from behind him. "This isn't like other RPGs. You don't buy stuff from a big list of items. You actually have to browse and pick out what you need."

Toon looked back across the room that he had thought was for show. Now that he thought of it, the weapon's shop hadn't been full like this one. Was buying and selling really done like the real world in this video game? Toon didn't like the way the game pretended to be reality. It was just creepy.

Once Toon understood how to go about making purchases things went more smoothly. He brought leather bracers, a leather chest piece, and a pair of leather pants up to the front counter. Walking up to the shop owner Toon presented him with what he wanted to buy. Finally things progressed as he would have expected when a menu opened up. It was a trade window. On one side was the gear he wanted. That was what he was getting. On the other side was a small sum of col. That was what he was giving. It made sense.

After accepting the trade Toon made a point of equipping his gear, eager to put that many more defensive stats between himself and death.

When Toon's gear had been on the table, it had been a size or so smaller than what would fit him. However, once Toon navigated through his inventory menu and equipped his new gear, they materialized around him as if they were always the right size. Toon was glad that at least something wasn't so hyper realistic.

After getting done with their shopping it was time to head out for the first quest since discovering they were in a death game. Diavel led the way at the fastest speeds they could run without incurring any sprinting penalties until they had reached a section of forest that gave way into an outcropping of large rocks that were a little over twice Toon's height. Around the rocks small fat red humanoid looking creatures were huddled together looking down at a pile of various copper weapons.

Diavel explained the plan. "Okay, so these guys use sword skills so you need to watch out for that. Those are the same things you've been using to kill them so you should know what to expect. Alright let's do this."

With no further explanation Diavel and Kaz tore into the group like mad men seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were playing in a death game. Their swords both glowed red as they clashed into the kobolds. Not even seconds later all the kobolds had shattered into blue polygons and Toon felt mystified.

"What the fuck man," Toon called out. "Why are you going so fast! We're brand new you can't expect us to pick this stuff up so quickly."

_It's one thing to go through things quickly when one is playing a game. It's another thing entirely to go quickly when one's life is on the line. _Toon thought.

"These are really weak trash mobs," Diabel said. "Why wouldn't we kill them quickly?"

"Because I'd rather learn how to play against something easy then risk dying if I have to fight something that can actually fight back," Matt offered, seeming just as taken aback by the speed of the kills as Toon. Neither of them had even had the chance to participate in the fight. They had hesitated upon hearing that the enemy would be using sword skills and those moments of indecision were enough time for their beta testing friends to finish the quest.

"Alright so what do you want me to do? Not kill things quickly? That seems kind of dumb," Diavel said, rubbing the back of his head.

"How about you let us kill the same mobs when they respawn, that way we can get practice too." Matt offered.

"Screw that," Diavel said. "That would take forever. Look this is what we will do. We can go through the quests quickly explaining to you how the fights work and you can practice the mechanics of dealing with the different sword forms with Toon on your own time. That way we can go quickly, but you can still learn everything you need to."

Toon looked at Matt as he thought about Diavel's comment. The two of them were both pretty good at games and had a lot of experience in various competitive gaming communities. Practicing against him probably would be a better experience than practicing against regular mobs. Then again, not practicing against the real thing might make him expect the mobs to do things that they weren't actually capable of. It was a tough call.

"That sounds better than nothing," Matt agreed on behalf of both of them. Toon often let Matt take the lead when it came to group decisions. Diabel nodded and then he was tearing off as if the argument had never happened. Soon Toon found himself back inside the weapon smith's shop, ready to turn in the quest.

"Hello, you sure got back here quickly. Did you give up on getting back my stock," the smith asked. Apparently the quest giver had some sort of timer that decided what it would say to people who were returning. Either that or it always said the same thing. Probably the latter.

"No," Diavel said. "We got you the stock. Here." With that Diavel opened a trade menu with the merchant and traded him the quest items that they had looted from the kobolds. The quest was immediately marked as completed before fading from view in the right-side of Toon's vision, but Toon's attention was quickly dragged away from that by what came next.

"Come with me into the back room and I'll let you choose from some of my best pieces of work," the quest giver said, before opening a door leading to the back of the shop.

Toon and the rest of his friends followed the quest giver back into the room. Unlike the first room this one was not spartan. Instead it had virtual weapons lining its walls. Toon quickly found a bronze dagger and removed it from the wall. It immediately disappeared in a cloud of blue polygons and status text announced that he had acquired it. So it was probably in his inventory. Meanwhile Kaz selected a two-handed bronze great-sword while Matt and Diavel both got one-handed bronze swords.

"Great choices," the quest giver said, though Toon didn't spare him a glance. Instead he pulled open his inventory and selected his new item, "Finely Crafted Bronze Dagger +0/6", and equipped it, causing it to disappear from his hands and rematerialize in the dagger sheathe at his side.

As they headed back outside to head towards yet another quest Toon noticied that that the artificial sun was beginning to set. It lit up the skyline in bright reds.

Diavel noticed it as well. "Alright," Diavel said, getting the groups attention. "Those of us with one-handed swords need to do the Secret Medicine In The Forest quest next, but there is no way we're going to be able to finish it before the sun finishes setting. So I say we go get checked into the inn."

The inn as it turned out wasn't as empty as the rest of town. There was a black-haired boy in it who was sitting in a corner, the girl who had passed them back in the stairwell who they had later overtaken, and even an entire party of other gamers sitting in the inns common room. Most of them were busy eating. Seeing the other players eating reminded the group of their own hunger.

"So how do we order food?" Toon asked.

"Eh," Diabel said. "Just sit at the table like you would at a restaurant an AI will come over to serve you. They will give menus and everything. After eating you get a trade request where you have to pay money. I don't know what happens if you cancel the trade. I recommend we don't find out."

Toon made a show of running over to the table and sitting down excitedly. He wanted tacos. The group followed after him, shaking their head at his antics.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I don't own the fanfiction.

**Floor 1, Day 2**

The next morning found Toon and the rest of his group in the inn's pixelated dining area eating a platter of virtual eggs. "This food is kind of bland," Toon observed. Last night it had actually tasted good, but he was really hungry then. Now he was just going through the motions.

"Yeah," Diavel agreed. "You don't get food that tastes good unless you get it from someone who has leveled up their cooking. Well, you can get good food from the NPC chefs in the restaurants back at the starting city, but the really good ones actually cost a lot of col. We'll go to some of them eventually, but right now we can't afford the luxury.

"I'm not so sure we'll ever get the chance to try the better foods. I for one am never coming back to this game once the people on the outside get us out of here," Toon said.

"Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you guys about that," Diavel said. "I don't think the people in the real world are going to be the ones to save us."

Both Toon and Matt looked shocked by Diavel's words, but Kaz gave a knowing nod of agreement. "What do you mean?" Toon asked.

"Kayaba Akiko pioneered the Nerve Gear technology, artificial intelligence systems, and this game. He is a once in a generation genius. I think that if he wants us trapped in here, we're going to be trapped and there isn't anything anyone can do about it," Diavel said.

It could be possible, but Toon wasn't quite ready to give up hope so easily. "You're so negative Diavel, surely someone will figure out a way to dismantle the Nerve Gear or something."

"All it will take is for them to mess up once." Diavel shook his head. "Once that happens a person will die. Then nobody will be allowed to try to dismantle the Nerve Gear again. Face it, we're not getting out of here the easy way."

Toon frowned, Diavel's words made far too much sense. Everyone else was looking grim. The reality of being stuck in the game was starting to set in. Then Matt visibly pulled himself out of the funk he was in. "Guys," Matt said, obviously attempting to change the topic. "This game is kind of weird. It has showers, but no way to brush our teeth. I can't go about my morning routine."

"Yeah there is a lot of stuff like that," Kaz said. "A lot of the annoying aspects of day to day life like needing to go to the bathroom aren't present within the game. I think the only reason that showers were left in was because all the mechanics of water had been built into the game from the onset. So adding the showers on top of that wasn't too much of a chore."

Toon decided to help continue distracting everyone from their fate. "How realistic did they go? Does the water get brought in via pipes from a reservoir or does it just get spawned in when you turn on the shower," he said.

"The latter I think," Kaz said. "Or at least I hope it's the latter. I don't know about the rest of you, but the amount of realism kind of creeps me out."

Toon nodded at that and went back to eating his breakfast. After breakfast the group split up. Matt and Diavel were going to be going on a quest to get the best sword on the floor, the Anneal Blade, but Toon and Kaz already had the best quest given dagger and greatsword available on the first floor from having done the kobold quest the previous day. So Toon and Kaz had some time to kill.

Toon realized that this was the perfect opportunity to start learning more about the game. He wasn't exactly sure what to ask Kaz about so he decided to do what he always did when he wanted to get better at a game. Practice.

"Hey Kaz. Lets duel," Toon said.

"Sure, but we need to make sure we don't actually duel to the death."

Toon rolled his eyes. That much was obvious. Toon swiped his fingers in the zipping motion that brought up the menu. With his focus on Kaz he hit interact. Another menu popped up. It had tons of options, from tracking which was grayed out, to inspecting, but Toon had eyes for only one. The duel button. He hit it and another menu popped up. There were three different types of duels. One was to the first blow. Another was to half-haelth. The last one was a duel to the death.

He decided a duel to half-health would be best. It would give the most chances to practice techniques. Not that he had a lot of them. Right now the only dagger skill he had unlocked was one called Horizontal. It brought his blade down in a horizontal slash and had a starting position that had his hand just above his shoulder.

A confirmation dialog popped up in front of Kaz, who promptly hit accept. Then the duel countdown started ticking. Toon was impatient. It wasn't like dueling in other games. The countdown was actually sixty seconds. Toon couldn't really understand the design decision.

Both Toon and Kaz started their skills as the countdown hit one. So even as the duel began their blades were tearing into each other taking off chunks of health from both of them. Toon noted his health descending rapidly. One more hit like that and he would be done.

He backed off, this would take some finesse. Kaz gave chase, jumping into his own Horizontal as soon as he had gotten his blade back into the starting position. Toon was ready for him. He brought his blade up in a block.

Kaz's blade slammed into Toon's and sent it careening to the side. The good news was that Kaz's sword skill ended. The bad news was that Toon felt his arm go numb. Though the numbing sensation only lasted a second or two and during those seconds Kaz wasn't attacking. Then the numbness faded and Kaz was on him once more. Unprepared for the renewed assault Toon took the blade to his chest and lost the duel.

"You did pretty good for someone who is new to the game," Kaz said.

"What the hell man. Why couldn't I block your attack?" Toon asked. He didn't want to hear bullshit about how he was good. If he was really good he wouldn't have lost.

"You did block my attack, but it was a powerful attack so we both got stunned for a little bit. If you don't want that to happen you have to parry, but you can't parry unless you have the parry skill. If you try to block a skill without using one of your own it usually just gets knocked aside. The parry skill gives you the ability to have the auto-assist help you block enemy sword skills. It basically adds another sword skill into the mix. One whose sole use it to block other skills."

"Huh. What if you use your own skill to block?"

"Theoretically it's possible," Kaz said. "However, it would be hard. You've got to remember that the attack patterns are set in stone. The auto-assist won't let you move the blade into a block. It will follow through with the required motion. You'll have to get use to these mechanics when we party against higher mobs, since there is something called switching in which one player focuses on batting aside the monsters sword or baiting a block while the other takes them down."

"Meh. If I was tanking I'd be sure to get the parry skill then, but I guess I'll leave that to Matt. I'm planning to be focusing on avoidance. So I figure my next few skill slots are going to be going to sprint and acrobatics."

"I'm thinking of getting non-combat skills myself, but Matt should get the shield skill before he picks up parry. It doesn't have any auto-assist features, but it lets you block sword skills as many times as you want if you can manage it. The only disadvantage is that it triggers a period where skills can't be used after every block. So its basically a player controlled block against a system assisted skill that actually has a starting position."

"Okay," Toon said. "Then he should get shield before parry. Enough about skills though. I want to duel again.".

"Sure."

With that the two began dueling again. At first Kaz dominated, but as the duels wore on Toon started winning a few. It was tough. Kaz's blade was longer and he abused the range. Toon had to bait an attack, dodge it, then land his own.

After several of the duels something interested happened. Text appeared on Toon's screen announcing that he had gained two new dagger skills, Vertical and Diagonal.

"Sweet, I got new moves," Toon told Kaz. "How do I use them though?"

"What I do is go into my menu and memorize how to use the new skill. Its character, then skills, then your weapon skill. After that you should get a list of moves that you have unlocked. What is your dagger skill at anyway."

Toon pulled up his menu and navigated as Kaz had directed. The number next to his dagger skill indicated he was at 10/1000. Not exactly very far along, but he had made progress. "Ten out of a thousand."

"Not bad. It shouldn't be long before all of start unlocking a lot of moves. I heard a rumor that there is an unlimited number of skills, but I'm pretty sure that isn't true."

Toon nodded as if he was paying attention, but really his mind was on the window in front of him. While Kaz had been talking Toon had selected the newest skill causing a new window to appear. In the window was a video that depicted an anime style character that looked like him going through the motions of bringing the sword up to his right shoulder then bringing it in a downward slash to the right. Then he brought the blade to his left shoulder and did a downward slash to the left. Each slash left the pink light of a sword skill behind it. It was a tutorial on how to use the dagger skill in visual form.

Without closing out the video Toon tried out the new dagger skill. At first he couldn't get the move to activate, but after he repositioned he managed to get the skill to work in both of the starting positions.

Then he closed out the video window and looked at the next skill. This one had the dagger going in a vertical arch that went either up or down. Its starting position was with the blade at either shoulder or waist level.

After practicing that slash a few times Toon closed out the second window as well.. Then he spotted Matt and Diavel. They had came back from their quest. Both wielding pretty cool looking blades. Toon guessed they were the anneal blades that Diavel had mentioned. "Sick blades," Toon said after his friends had gotten close.

"Yeah," Diavel said. "They have a total of eight potential enhancements,"

"What do you mean by that?" Toon asked.

"Basically you can upgrade weapons multiple times. There are five types of upgrades: sharpness which affects damage, quickness which increases the speed of the auto-assist, durability which makes the weapons more resilient and easier to repair, heaviness which basically reduces the strength requirements of the weapon making it easier to wield, and accuracy which makes the auto-assist help more in targeting your attacks."

"Can you upgrade other pieces of gear, like tunics for example?"

"No. Only weapons. There are tailoring and smithing skills that allow for cosmetic changes though. I'm going to find someone eventually to get me decked out in all matching colors so I can look like a knight from a fantasy novel," Diavel said.

"Bleh," Toon said. "You and your focus on looks. Well I already know what I'm going to do with my dagger upgrades. I'm pretty sure I have six of them because it said zero out of six next to the name."

"What are you going to use it on?" Matt asked.

"Quickness and durability," Toon said. "I want to be the fastest person in this game."

"Anyway now we've got my first goal for this group done. Getting the best weapons," Diavel said.

"So what's next?" Toon asked.

"Well the first step is to get our weapons upgraded and to get better gear in our other slots. Then we are going to be making our way across the floor to the next villages. Once there we work our way towards Tolbana and make it our base of operations as we work to clear the tower labyrinth. The fastest way to get all that done is to start taking the best grinding spots, rare spawns and treasure chests for ourselves. If we wait too long we won't know there spawn timers and other groups will take them up," Diavel said.

Toon nodded at that. Rare spawns and named monsters tended to give better experience and gear in most MMOs that he had played, but people were always competing for them. However, if someone knew when they had died then they could tell when they respawned. Thus, it was no longer a competition. It was just a matter of showing up at the right time.

A huge bell upside down bell-shaped plant with a large humanoid mouth filled with fangs was the first rare spawn the group found. It was named Sprou the Seeder. Surrounding the plant were three smaller plants of a similar shape. They were called Little Nepents, despite the fact that they were nearly a meter tall. Toon felt his pulse quicken as his hand gripped his dagger was actually facing down something out of a horror story and if he lost he would die.

"Alright," Diavel said seemingly immune to the fear. "There is nothing special for this monster. It doesn't even use sword skills so it can't do very much damage. The only thing that makes it challenging is we have to kill all four monsters. So what were going to do is each one of us will take on a separate nepent."

"Wait," Kaz said. "Shouldn't you and Matt be tanking?"

Diavel frowned. "We'll do that when we get to the stronger monsters. I don't want to waste time with this trash."

With those words spoken Diavel charged the rare spawn. After a brief period of hesitation everyone moved in and got the aggro of a separate nepent. Luckily Toon didn't have to deal with the named monster. Diavel had taken that mob for himself.

Toon's blade lashed out in a Horizontal and bisected the plant that was even now trying to take his life. The plant responded by slapping him with a vine. Toon winced and backed away from the fight, but he needn't have worried. Diavel was right. The plants barely did any damage. Toon took confidence from this and re-engaged. In a few slices it was over. The plant like thing exploded into polygons.

The group had set things up so that all loot went through Diavel. So Toon looked to him to find out what had dropped. "No rare items this time," Diavel answered, seeing Toon looking to him.

The group was off to the next rare spawn. A kobold named Farluk the Scout. "This mob is a little more tricky, so I guess I should explain it, " Diavel said. "This is the first monster that you'll see that learns from your attacks. Once you use an attack once it will then be able to dodge it if you advertise the attack in the future. That actually makes it a really strong monster since we don't have many weapon skills right now."

Toon nodded. He had heard his beta tester friends talking about how monsters could learn attack patterns before so it didn't come as too much of a surprise. It was still impressive though. Most games didn't have AI on the same level as the ones in Sword Art Online.

Toon didn't get to see the mechanics that made the monster he was fighting dangerous, something he was grateful for. With four people in the party there was more then enough skills to handle the cunning kobold. However, the group did get to see a rare drop. It was a D-class rare on-use telescope. Not the sort of thing you could use to increase your stats, but it was something.

Then the group was back to traveling to the next spawn point. Toon quickly discovered there was a downside to hunting the rare spawns that spawned around the Town of Beginnings and Horunka. It actually took a while to travel between them. However, the group wasn't about to complain since each new chest and monster brought them closer and closer to beating the game. Well, the group might not complain, but Toon was fine with doing it. "This is so stupid," he said, venting his displeasure. "Run, jog, walk. I thought you said this game is good. All we are doing is traveling around from place to place."

"You do that in other games too," Diavel said, frowning. He didn't slow from his jog so his words were forced out between pants.

"Yeah, but in other games I don't actually feel exhausted when I'm running around. This is ridiculous."

"Heh. I guess you are sort of right. Honestly I wasn't really on the front lines of the beta and didn't camp rare spawns and treasure chests. I just sort of took them when I came across them. It wasn't such a drag," Diavel admitted.

It was nearly midday by the time the group had exhausted the supply of named mobs and hidden chests scattered around Horunka. Toon actually felt like they were doing a service for the newer players. Some of the monsters they had fought had been dangerous. Toon let out a long breath to calm himself as he thought of the Yita the Kobold Tactician. The fucker ignored aggro tables and only chased around the player who was closest to dying. Since Toon had the least HP on account of focusing on dexterity, that had been him.

Next on the agenda was grinding, but first the group ate lunch. It was a quick affair. Then they were out again.

The best place to grind at this level was a large cavern that was filled with kobolds. They took one section for themselves and began plowing through the mobs. The respawn time was fast so they were never lacking in things to pull.

An hour into grinding Toon was wondering how it was anyone could actually find grinding fun when something great happened. He and friends leveled.

This time when Toon put two points into dexterity and one into strength he actually felt something. It was subtle and he almost missed it, but he was sure he could actually feel himself getting faster and stronger. It was like his muscles shifted ever so slightly. Idly Toon wondered what it would feel like to get a bunch of stats at once.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Not my world. I'm just writing in it. This chapter is shorter then the average. The next one will be longer then the average. Hopefully it balances out._

**Floor 1, Day Three**

Horunka had forests on one side and rolling hills on another. These foothills quickly gave way to a mountainous region filled with mines that contained Kobold Miners. In the real world the proximity would have been ridiculous. Geography just didn't change so quickly. They weren't in the real world though. The virtual landscape could be as unrealistic as the designers wanted it to be.

It was towards these small virtual mountains that the group was traveling. They had just finished getting all the named mobs and treasure chests that spawned around Horunka and the Town of Beginnings.

"It's pretty awesome that we don't have any competition for the rares," Toon said.

"Well we do have competition," Diavel said. "They just don't know the respawn timers like we do."

"I'm surprised we haven't had anyone sitting on the spawn waiting," Matt said.

"Your thinking from the perspective of other MMOs where people can AFK while camping the spawn and tab in to check on things," Diavel said. "That won't happen when people are stuck in the full-dive. Not unless someone is really desperate for the rare."

"Good point," Matt said. "I hadn't thought about that."

Diavel nodded. "Anyway, we're almost to the best grind spot. Its in this cave," Diavel said.

The group entered the cave and it soon became obvious that it was actually a mine. There were various tunnels filled with Kobold Miners that huddled around in-game veins of ore. Toon was pretty sure those would be gatherable if he had the right skills and items.

Diavel didn't have them pull the kobolds in the side tunnels. Instead he led them deeper into the mine until they had reached a cavern that had easily five times as many Kobold Miners in it. The only problem was there group wasn't alone.

There was a group of four teenagers with various weapons who were slowly pulling one Kobold, killing it, then pulling another. They were playing it safe and Toon felt that was wise. Just from watching them he could tell they weren't experienced divers.

"Ignore them," Diavel said. "We'll just take the mobs that spawn on the other side of the cavern."

"Kaz you go with me," Diavel said. "Matt and Toon you guys pull together. Lets do this the same way we did yesterday."

Toon nodded and paired off with Matt. Diavel and Kaz paired off as well and moved away from them. Then Matt pulled the first kobold even as Diavel pulled a different one. Toon didn't spare Diavel another glance. He had more important concerns.

Toon waited his body filling with tension as Matt blocked the Kobold Miners swing with his shield. Even as the strike connected with a clang Toon was moving, charging in with a Linear that left red light on the kobolds chest. The kobolds health went down a third of the way from the one strike. Then Toon was waiting again. This time Matt executed a Horizontal which slammed into the kobold's mining pick prompting Toon to slam another Linear into the kobold. Then Matt landed his own attack on the kobold and it shattered into blue polygons.

Before the polygons had even faded from the air Matt had pulled another miner. That was how things progressed, monster after monster as quickly as they could manage. Soon Toon found himself panting. Yet before he was completely exhausted they ran out of mobs.

Toon took a deep breath. The respawn timers were their break. Toon glanced over at the other group to see how things were progressing and saw them starting back. They looked amazed and soon they begun arguing amongst themselves. Toon caught snatches of the conversation. "... like them ... faster." He couldn't really make out much, but they seemed to be arguing.

In the end the group switched things around so that they were imitating Diavel's plan. Instead of one group of four fighting one mob at a time they paired into one party split into two group which pulled independtly of each other. Toon's attention was dragged away because the kobolds on their side of the cavern had respawned.

Matt pulled a kobold and blocked its attack with his shield then Toon was switching in with a Linear strike to the Kobolds chest. Matt came in again, this time blocking with his sword and then Toon was once again striking. It was a little scary to be fighting with his life on the line likes this, but Toon wasn't actually worried. It wasn't too hard.

A yell sounded from the other side of the cavern. "Micha, no!" The sound of shattering glass broke the stillness that followed. Toon spared a glance to the other side of the room and saw something horrifying. The other group had three kobolds attacking them at once. That wouldn't have been too scary a thing for Toon's group, but it was for the teenagers. Already one of them had died.

Damnit Toon had to get over there and help. Yet he couldn't. It wouldn't be right to leave Matt to fight the kobold on his own. Feeling reckless with the urgency to go help Toon charged into the kobold he was fighting, taking a hit for his haste and killed it with another Linear thrust.

Then Toon rushed across the distance and hacked into one of the kobolds,, but it had a lot of health. It could take more than one blow. Another teenager died. Toon executed a Horizontal then another Horizontal. The kobold exploded into polygons.

Matt, Diavel, and Kaz were soon joining him in the melee and with their help the tides of the battle quickly turned, but when the dust settled only two of the teenagers were still alive.

"Oh my god," a teen with spiky blonde hair said. "He told me we shouldn't do it, but I overruled him."

Toon wasn't sure what to say. Someone had just died. He felt shocked. Would that be him if he didn't improve at the game? Diavel had made things so safe, but the death had come so fast.

The blonde haired teen had started crying. "It's my fault isn't it? Its my fault their dead."

"Sort of," Diavel said.

The other group mate, a black haired boy wearing a blue shirt, was just staring at where the polygons had disappeared as if hoping they would rematerialize. He seemed distraught too.

Meanwhile, everyone else looked at Diavel like he was an insane. That was not the right thing to say at this point. Even Toon knew that and he could be pretty dense at times.

"It's not your fault," Kaz said, trying to repair the damage.

"No. No, hes right," the blonde haired boy said. "I shouldn't be out here. I should be staying safe back at the starting city."

There was an awkward silence after that. It lasted for long moments before the black haired boy broke out of his daze. "Lets go," he said. "Before something happens to us too."

The other boy nodded, still crying.

"Did that just happen?" Matt asked. Then he turned to look at Diavel. "I thought you said that this shit would be safe."

Diavel scratched the back of his neck and looked sheepish. "Well, it is safe for us," he explained. "I guess it just isn't safe for noobs."

Toon and Matt looked at each other in worry. They might not be noobs, but they were newbies. That had to change.

That night Toon and Matt found themselves outside Horunka's inn after having eaten dinner with the rest of their group. "We can't stay like this," Toon said to Matt. "We need to get better at this game if we are going to survive. I'm sure you noticed how much better Kaz and Diavel are then the two of us."

"I've noticed. You ready to get some duels in?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, I am, but I think it should be the start of a regular thing between us. Wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, go get rare spawns, grind, quest, and then finally spend the evening dueling," Toon said.

The two made their way outside to duel. The timer was once again a long one. Toon was impatient with it. Eventually it ticked its way downward.

The first duel went in Matt's favor. As did the next one. It was the same thing every time. Matt would block when Toon dodged his attacks by using his shields. Then when he wasn't on the defensive he would abuse the range of his sword to keep Toon on the back foot.

Toon soon found himself complaining. "That shield is so overpowered. I should probably use one."

"You're one of our main damage dealers. I'm not sure if a shield is appropriate for you. Shouldn't you be getting skill slots that improve your DPS?" Matt asked.

"Heh, I guess so. Though I don't really know what the best damage skills are," Toon said.

"Ready for another duel?" Matt asked.

"Sure," Toon said. Then he sent a duel request. While the countdown went down Toon had time to talk. "Hey, how come you have an extra skill slot?"

"I don't," Matt said. "When me and Diavel were doing the quest that gave the Anneal Blade we dropped our Blade Throwing skill to pick up the Shield skill. He said there wasn't a good reason to have throwing anymore, since we wouldn't need to tag mobs before other people when so far ahead of the pack."

"Oh," Toon said. "Maybe I'll drop my Blade Throwing too."

Matt shrugged.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Don't own the universe.

**Floor 1, Day 6**

Toon, Diavel, Matt, and Kaz were all waiting patiently on top of what seemed to be just another virtual hill of grass in-between the Town of Beginnings and Horunka. Though the hill was empty save for them, it wouldn't be for long. They knew that because they were the ones who had killed the named rare called Farluk the Scout twenty-four hours ago.

The group's patience was rewarded when a large kobold fazed into view in a vortex of blue light.

"Attack," Diavel yelled as he charged in and threw a Diagonal slash at the rare. The group followed, surrounding the mob. It was awkward to have four people fighting one monster due to friendly fire once locked into the motions of the sword skill. So the group took turns attacking from different angles. The monster never took its eyes off Diavel though mainly because it was him who was doing the most damage.

Eventually the kobold exploded into polygons.

"Sweet," Diavel said. "It dropped a bunch of the Refined Bronze Ore we need to upgrade our weapons and a C-class rare shield. I think we have enough bronze ore to complete all of our upgrades now. I'll take the shield and Matt will get the next one." Then Diavel navigated his menus and equipped the shield. It was small white kite shield that had a black border and a picture of a sword on its front. Diavel look at it for a bit and then frowned. "I'm going to need some blue hair dye if I want this to match with the rest of my gear."

"Why do you even care about cosmetics? That stuff doesn't matter at all." Everyone in the group knew of Toon's disdain for all things fashion. He whined about it whenever someone made decisions based on looks.

"You're the weird one not me Toon," Diavel said. "It's normal to care about how you look."

"Then normal isn't very practical now is it? I'm telling you its all about what has the best stats. Especially now that our life is on the line. I know you won't agree though so let's just get to the next rare spawn so that nobody else can claim it."

Before the group could dash off another presence made itself known. "So you're the group that has been keeping all of the rare spawns and treasure chests on farm," a female voice said. Toon was startled. He hadn't known anyone was behind him. Toon looked to the source of the noise and saw a young girl who was wearing a brown cloak with a cowl on it which was currently hiding most of her face. Despite being mostly covered Toon managed to recognize her. She was the girl who had passed them while they were on the way to the rat quest and one of the people who made it Horunka on release day. Toon hoped they weren't a player killer. He really didn't want to kill a little girl.

Diavel seemed to recognize her too. "Hey Argo!" He smiled. "My group almost has everything we need from the rares. We won't be monopolizing them for long. Your worried about the newer players right?"

"Yeah," Argo said. "I'm not sure if you know this, but people have been dying. All of the best items and grinding spots are being hoarded by the beta testers and so the new players are having to fight against some of the harder mobs right off the bat. There not good enough to handle it."

Toon felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He hadn't really thought about the consequences of his actions. Were people really dying because his group had been doing their best to get everyone in their party the best gear?

"What do you want me to do?" Diavel asked. "This is a game of life and death and my group is working to beat this game as fast as we can. We can't do that unless we work towards that goal. That means gearing ourselves to face the challenges ahead of us."

Argo frowned and looked like she might argue. Then she sighed. "Alright, I get it, but we do need to do something for the newer players."

"I agree," Kaz said. "Maybe we can give them some of the items we don't need?"

Diavel shook his head. "I have a better idea," he said. "We should even the playing field. The beta testers have an advantage because we know more about the game. We should give them information."

"You mean like teaching new players?" Argo asked.

"Exactly like that," Diavel said.

"Hmm, I think I could do that, but I don't really have time to help each person on a one on one basis. It would take too long. However, what I could do is write guides." Argo looked thoughtful. "I mean, I'm already selling information."

"You sell information?" Diavel asked rhetorically.. "I guess someone has to since we can't go online to find out more about the game. Actually I have a proposition for you. Whenever my group finishes farming something, I'll sell you the re-pop time. Then you can turn around and sell the re-pop time to someone else. That way we both profit."

This distracted Argo from her thoughts on the guide. Now she was all business. "Deal," she said. "But I'll only pay half of what I can get other people to buy it for. I need to make a profit after all."

"Alright," Diavel agreed. "I can live with that. I know I don't have time to deal with the life of an informant since I have a game to beat. On that note my group and I actually have to get going. The next rare monster we're looking to kill is going to be respawning soon and we need to get there."

With that Diavel took off. Toon gaped. The rare monster was much less important than working on the guide. However, Diavel was their group leader. Kaz solved the problem for everyone with his next words. "If you need any help writing that guide, send me a message okay? I don't want people dying in this death game if we can avoid it."

The group caught up to Diavel at the entrance to a cave that contained kobold. Toon had been in the cave before. At the back of the tunnel a rare monster named The Tunneler spawned. All the rest of the kobold in the cave were miners. The named mob was only special because he was twice the size of his peers. The mine was a great place to get ore for upgrading and forging weapons.

Fighting through the Kobold Miners was a breeze and soon the group found themselves at the back of the mine. The digital cavern was small and dark, the only light was that cast by the flickering torches that hung in brackets along the side of the tunnels. It was a creepy place.

For the second time that day Toon was surprised by a voice coming from directly behind him. "Give up your gear or we'll fuck you up."

Toon turned around to find three players. All of them look liked they were wearing crafted gear and wielding bronze weapons. Two of the enemies were shrouded in shadows, but the one in the lead had black hair and looked to be around twenty. He was also the one who had spoke.

_I think we outgear them._ Toon thought.

Kaz was the first to respond to the threat. "Look we don't want any trouble. We'll give you what we're not using and then you can let us go okay?"

Diavel didn't like that idea. "Hell no. We outgear these scrubs and were probably a higher level too. This is a fight to the death and I'm pretty sure they will be the ones dying."

Toon gulped. He didn't really want to fight. Not when winning meant killing someone and losing meant dying,. Diavel was probably right though. They would win if they fought.

The two people in the shadows shifted nervously. They seemed to be having second thoughts. The leader on the other hand scoffed. "There's no way that dying in this game kills us. I don't buy it."

"And you want to test that theory?" Matt asked, as he brought his sword into the starting position for a sword form.

The leader didn't answer, but one of the people behind him had enough. "Look we don't actually want to fight. We were just trying to intimidate you into giving up your gear. We'll be going."

The leader glared at his mutinous subordinate, but the other person in the shadows was nodding in agreement. With his two followers out of the fight, the leader had no choice but to back down. "You'll be seeing me again," he said as his group exited the mines.

The entire group was silent for a few moments. "Wow," Kaz said. "I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life."

"Man up," Diavel said. "We're going to be in tougher spots than that before we beat this game."

"How did you know they would back down?" Kaz asked.

Diavel grinned. "I didn't. I just knew that we would beat them."

Kaz didn't seem to know what to say to that. Matt on the other hand had some choice words. "You do realize that would mean killing them right? So you know, I'm not actually planning on becoming a murderer just so we can keep some items in a fucking video game."

Diavel had the decency to blush at the rebuke, but he wasn't backing down. "You're thinking about this all wrong. This isn't a game anymore Matt. This is our reality. If we give in to people like those guys then we're going to live a life of fear. Fear of noobs no less. I couldn't live with the shame."

"Diavel," Matt said. "Shut up."

Diavel blinked several times and his mouth moved as if he was talking, but no words came out. Then he seemed to recover. "What the fuck did you say to me?"

"I'm not going to sit here and listen to you advocate for the killing of other players," Matt said.

"Guys calm down," Kaz interjected. "The dangers past. The PKers were bluffing."

The group grudgingly agreed and headed further into the tunnel. The rare monster was already spawned. "Longclaws the Tunneler," stood out above its head in grey lettering.

The group pulled the monster. Diavel and Matt took turns tanking while Toon and Kaz did damage. Just before the monster was about to die someone else appeared. They were about the same height as Toon, so they were probably in their late teens. They were also completely covered in a black robe with a hood that completely hid their features. The newcomer struck out with a curved blade and killed the monster.

Toon gaped. Killing rare spawns was a little different than killing other monsters. They had a mechanic that made it so that the player who got the last hit were the ones who got the item unless loot settings had been changed in the killing party. In effect, the newcomer had just stolen a rare item from them.

"What the fuck man," Diavel said.

The newcomer didn't stick around to chat. He gave a friendly wave before disappearing into thin air. It was obvious he had activated his hiding skill.

"I'm getting tired of people sneaking up on me," Diavel said. "I think I'm going to pick up the Perception skill."

Today really wasn't going very well.

**Floor 1, Day 7**

Toon wasn't sexist, but even he couldn't help but think that only in a video game would a cute pink-haired girl be a blacksmith.

"So you're sure your blacksmithing skill is at ten out of a thousand already?" Diavel asked for the second time.

"Of course, but if you don't trust me you can check for yourself," Lisbeth said. She opened her menus and navigated to her skill page. Toon craned his neck to get a look. Sure enough her blacksmithing skill was actually at ten.

"Alright then," Diavel said. "All of us would like to get our weapons upgraded. We already have the materials for about sixteen upgrades. We'll do each upgrades one weapon at a time. No offense, but I don't want to just give you all the materials and have you run away with them."

Lisbeth's mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in shock. "Sixteen upgrades?"

"Yeah, I know right," Diavel said. "Hey, I think since we're doing you such a favor in helping you get so much skill-ups you should give us a discount."

"I can do that," Lisbeth chirped, having recovered from her surprise. "But only if you agree to make me your exclusive blacksmith!"

Diavel shook his head. "I can't promise that. My group is farther into the game than anyone else. We are going to be needing a really good blacksmith or else they won't be able to keep up with us. So we can't just promise something like that."

"Hey what do you mean! I'm going to be the best damn blacksmith in all of Aincrad!" Lisbeth said.

Toon snickered. It wasn't that he thought the girl couldn't do it, it was just that Diavel didn't seem to share his confidence. One of his eyebrows was raised and he looked like he was barely keeping himself from disagreeing with her. The laughter was a mistake though, because the girl rounded on him looking livid. He raised his hands in surrender and backed off. She pointed at him. "He doesn't get a discount."

Diavel shot Toon a glare. "Alright, alright. Wait how much do you charge anyway."

"Well, I usually charge a hundred col per upgrade, because the NPC blacksmiths charge that much," Lisbeth said. "For you guys though I'll go down to ninety col."

Diavel suddenly seemed a little more eager to have her work on their weapons. "Alright, lets do this then."

"Okay," Lisbeth said. "Well, I don't actually have a shop of my own so we need to go to one of the NPC blacksmiths and use their forge. They don't actually get mad if you use them."

"I know," Diavel said. "To have a forge of your own you would need to have purchased a building of your own and nobody has that much col just yet."

The girl nodded and then led them to an NPC forge. The building was crowded with all of them in there, but nobody seemed to want to miss out on watching the weapons be upgraded.

"Okay who is first?" The female blacksmith asked.

Diavel didn't seem to want to step up. So Toon did.

"I'll go first," Toon said before trading over his bronze dagger.

"I'll need the materials too," Lisbeth said, raising her eyes at him.

"Don't look at me. Kaz is the one you're looking for." Too pointed at Kaz who gave a small wave.

Kaz traded over the materials for the upgrades and Lisbeth materialized them and then began to examine them. "These will get you two upgrades to quickness and two to durability," Lisbeth said. "Are you sure that is what you want? Most people I've worked for have wanted me to upgrade sharpness."

"Yeah," Toon answered. "I'm sure."

"Okay. Stand back everyone," Lisbeth said. Then she placed the weapon on the forge and one of the ingots of bronze ore on top of the weapon. Next she used the hammer that she had strapped to her waist and brought it down lightly upon the ore several times. After ten light taps of the hammer the ore and weapon were consumed in a soft white light. "First upgrade to a durability was a success. Now lets do the next one."

Again the young blacksmith put an ingot atop the blade. Once more she lightly tapped it with her hammer. Toon was amused to see that a bead of sweat had appeared upon her brow and that her tongue was sticking out of her mouth in concentration. She looked so cute. Then she had went through all ten strikes and the same white glow appeared.

The next attempt went differently. After the tenth strike no white light encompassed the items. Instead the ore burst into blue polygons which faded. Too blinked. He didn't know that could happen.

The blacksmith flushed. "I'm sorry. That happens sometimes. Your weapon just lost one of its upgrade slots."

"It what?" Toon asked.

"Well, there is a chance the upgrade fails. When it does one of two things happens. You either lose the weapon or you lose an upgrade slot."

"Was it your fault?" Toon asked, wondering if he was supposed to be mad.

"It doesn't work that way Toon," Kaz said. "Its all RNG."

"Okay then. Lets just finish up with this." Toon tried not to show it, but he was actually a little upset. That weapon was what he used to protect himself in this game. Having it damaged wasn't part of the plan.

The next two upgrades went off without a hitch. Then Matt upgraded his weapon. He actually put all of his points in durability and none of his upgrades failed. That was a good thing. His weapon took a lot more hits, since he used it block. So it needed to be able to take damage.

Then it was Kaz's turn. It came to Toon as Kaz traded over his weapon that Diavel had made himself go last on purpose. The bastard wanted the girl to get skill points from leveling so his upgrades were more likely to succeed. Sneaky sneaky. Toon was sure of one thing. He wouldn't be the one going first next time.

Kaz, unlike Matt, had several upgrades fail. He had put two in sharpness and two in durability, but both of the points in sharpness failed to take.

Then it was Diavel turn. He traded over his Anneal Blade +0/8 looking smug. Lisbeth got the items for upgrades to durability and sharpness. Then she tried to do the first upgrade. The tenth strike came and... Diavel's weapon shattered into polygons.

The entire room was deathly quiet as the tinkling sound of the shattering sword faded save for the labored breathing of a very horrified blacksmith. "I'm so sorry," she said in between breaths. "That is the first time I've lost a weapon. I'll make it up to you though. I'll make you a new weapon free of charge."

Diavel looked murderous. "Don't bother. There isn't a weapon you could make that would replace that blade."

Lisbeth looked ready to cry. "I'm really sorry. Please, is there anything I can do to repay you?"

Diavel opened a menu with her and traded her the col for the upgrades. Then he left without having answered his question.

"He'll get over it," Toon said.

"Are you sure?" Lisbeth asked.

Toon was a big fan of honesty. "Nope. Not really. Hey, do you think I could add you? I'm probably going to need a blacksmith in the future and I don't really hold the failed upgrades against you."

"Sure," the cute blacksmith said. "The name is Lisbeth. You spell it L-I-S-B-E-T-H."

Toon used his menu to add Lisbeth to his friends list. He now had his first friend in the game outside of his group and it was a girl. A girl who wasn't fat or ugly.


End file.
